Non-farm employment rose 64k in November, slightly ahead of the consensus forecast in Bloomberg (50k). November’s reading marked an uptick in hiring from October (also reported this morning), where job growth fell by 105k. However, October’s figures were weighed down by a sharp drop in federal hiring (-162k), reflecting those workers who opted into the deferred federal worker resignation program initiated by the Trump administration earlier this year. Many of those employees remained on the payroll through September.
- Importantly, the 43-day government shutdown had no impact on federal hiring figures for November, as furloughed workers eventually received backpay once the government reopened.
- Both the August (-4k to -26k) and September (119k to 108k) payroll figures were revised lower.
- Smoothing through the volatility, job gains averaged 22k per-month through the three-months ending in November, little changed since April.
Private payrolls rose 69k in November – slightly higher than the 52k reported in October – with job gains concentrated in health care & social assistance (+64k) and construction (+28k). Transportation & warehousing (-17.7k), leisure & hospitality (-12k) and manufacturing (-5k) all shed jobs last month as did the federal government (-6k).
Because of the government shutdown, household survey figures were not collected for October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that the lack of October data required an adjustment to the statistical weighting process. In addition, the survey response rate was lower than usual. This resulted in “slightly higher than usual” standard errors on November’s estimates.
- Relative to September, the labor force increased by 323k, which was more than the 96k increase in household employment. This resulted in the unemployment rate rising 12.5 basis points to a new cycle high of 4.6%. The labor force participation rate rose another tick to 62.5%, or the highest level since April.
Average hourly earnings rose 0.1% month-on-month (m/m) – down from 0.4% m/m in October. On a year-ago basis, wage growth slowed to a new cycle low of 3.5%.
Key Implications
There’s a lot to digest in this morning’s release. The takeaway is that the labor market remains on a relatively soft footing, with employers showing little appetite to hire, but are also reluctant to fire. That said, labor demand has cooled more than supply in recent months, which is what’s behind the steady upward drift in the unemployment rate.
However, at last week’s press conference, Chair Powell warned that we would need to look at the next few months of data “with a skeptical eye” as collection rates and methodological adjustments could impact the quality of the October/November releases. From that perspective, last month’s uptick in the unemployment rate appears less dire, particularly when balanced against private sector job growth that looks to be stabilizing. The market reaction was relatively muted post-release, with Fed futures still not fully pricing in the next quarter-point cut until June.
